The Satanic Temple, an established New York City-based religious organization, has offered to donate a public monument to Oklahoma’s Capitol Preservation Commission for display upon Oklahoma City’s capitol grounds. Described as an “homage” to Satan, the purpose of the monument is to complement and contrast the Ten Commandments monument that already resides on the North side of the building. The donation offer has been submitted and is currently awaiting the commission’s reply.

The Satanic Temple Is Dead Serious About This.

When Patheos heard of this, they reached out to the temple, and had some questions answered. The statement boils down to the Satanic Temple’s willingness to embrace the new Republican-led insistence of religiously backed memorials, and they plan to take full advantage of it.

Earlier reports of the temple called them the Religious Yes Men. The irony is that the tenets of the Church of Satan, founded by Anton LaVey in 1966, not only make this mix of satire and dogma plausible, they embrace it.

While none would consider Father Guido Sarducci a spokesperson for the Catholic Church, Satanists have no problem with getting its message out through any means possible. After all, the founding principles of Satanism can be found in the works of none other than Ayn Rand. If anything, Satanism is the epitome, and the end-form of Ayn Rand’s Objectivism. With the popularity of Ayn Rand’s philosophy among the Republicans, including one-time GOP VP hopeful Paul Ryan, the idea of them rejecting the Satanic Temple’s monument is impossible to fathom. It would instead be a true affirmation to their love affair with selfishness.

Okla. brought the Satanic Temple upon itself.

To celebrate Oklahoma’s new religious memorial laws, the Satanic Temple has filed the paperwork to put up a monument on the state capitol building’s lawn.

So, what is it going to be GOP? A memorial to 666 himself, courtesy of the Satanic Temple and its members in Okla., or a return to the tenets of this nation, with a wall of separation between Church and State. Because once you open up the gates, and let the flood of religion into the public commons, you can no longer control whose messages go out to the public.